The Battle for Middle-earth has just begun! The Edain Mod returns to the classic gameplay of the first Battle for Middle-earth, reimagined with countless new heroes, units and abilities. Journey deeper into Tolkien's world than ever before, relive the movies through meticulously crafted visuals and forge your path to victory in epic strategic battles. Follow your destiny... Middle-earth awaits.

Edain Mod 4.5 The Spellbook of Gondor

SPELLBOOK OF GONDOR

Most of the spells in the spellbook of Gondor were already very fitting, which meant that only 3 spells fell away and 2 new spells were introduced.

THE FIRST ROW

The first spell that fell away was the healing from the first row, which had more than one reason. While the Horn is definetly offensiv and the Repair spell is definetly defensiv, the heal was something inbetween. The heal might be a long time lasting effect, but nonetheless it is a direct empowerment of the fighting troops and therefore it should be offensiv. Comparing the Heal with Horn, the Horn just fits Gondor much better, because the Heal is a spell that is particular strong if the playerer has fewer but stronger units, which isn't really the case for Gondor, especially at the start of the game. Therefore, we thought that the “Gondorian Archtecture” – spell and the “Horn of Gondor” – spell are much more very fitting for Gondor in the first row. Furthermore, Gondor already has a couple of healing possibilities, which should be able to compensate the removal of the Heal from the spellbook.

THE SECOND ROW

The arrowstorm spell also appeared in multiple spellbooks. We replaced it with a Barrage spell, because we thought it would be much more fitting for Gondor, considering the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. The arrow volley was a spell that did nothing but causing damage for a short time, which didn't fit Gondor's playstyle of slow but continous advance.Furthermore, Gondor missed a good opportunity to attack enemy buildings early in the game, such that we created a completly new spell with a unique system.The Barrage does not simply be summoned in the target area, but Gondor's siege engine fire the barrage in the direction of the nearest enemy building, such that the bombarded area slowly travels in that direction. Thus, a bigger area is affected, which the enemy should avoid, if he doesn't want to suffer damage. At the same time, buildings don't have the advantage to move and therefore there damage is certain.The spell offers the player a huge potential, which can be fullfilled at the correct usage, and allows Gondor in the early game to act aggressively.

THE THIRD ROW

In addition the cloudbreak spell fell away. Just like the other 2 spells, this weather spell existed in more than one spellbook and we didn’t think it would be fitting for Gondor to have this spell.

The Fiefdom spell and the Gandalf the White spell were moved from the second row to the third row and had to bes strengthened in order to justify that:

The Fiefdom spell now has the passive ability which leads to them automatically having forged blades, heavy armor and fire arrows. Not only this spell but the whole system of signal fires have been changed too, thus making them more usefull and more intuitive.

Gandalf now becomes Gandalf the White and gains 100% bonus on magic attacks, -25% on recharge time for his spells and +1000 life points.

The Grey Company spell also got a rework, because the spell had some problems. The spell mainly did nothing but summon troops, but lacked a deeper concept or strategy. Through the spell three battalions of archers where summoned, which weren't any troops Gondor really needed, as Gondor already has good and usefull archers. Additional to the archers there were summoned to melee Heroes, which was another discomfort, because these heroes had hardly any possibilities to interact with the archers and they themselves were quite different, too. While Halbarad was more of a supporter, the Twins dealt high single target damage. In the end the player had one spell which summoned three different independent elements, which is just a sign of bad game design.Therefore we decided to give the spell a deeper tactical meaning. Instead of 3 archers, the spell summons 1 Swordsmen, 1 Spearmen, and 1 Archer of the Grey Company, who grant defensive leaderships for Gondor units of the same type, thus highlighting Gondor's diverse units and supporting them. Furhtermore, this is a direct link to the books, as there was written that the Grey Company arrived armed with Bows, Swords and Spears. Halbarad and the Twins will support the endurance of nearby units, too. Halbarad regenerates fallen horde-members and the Twins have an active healing ability, which heals all nearby allies. Thus Gondor has at least a small compensation for the loss of the Heal. Heroes aren't affected, as they are already by Aragorn's healing.

THE CENTRAL SPELL

Because there hasn't been any existing spell which fitted the role of a central spell of Gondor, we created a new one:

Formations of Gondor:Troops of Gondor gain +20% damage and armor , when they toggle to their specialized formation

We believe that this spell is perfect for the faction spell of Gondor, since Gondor was the only kingdom in Middleearth that had a well-trained and organized army. To symbolize that, one of their strengths should be their formations.Moreover, the formations of the units of Gondor are an important characterisation of Gondor, because no other faction has as many formations. This spell should symbolize this.

THE FINALE SPELLS

Gondor has with theArmy of the Dead and the Rohirrim already two iconic spells with lots of feeling. Nonetheless, those two spells where a problem as they were obviously both offensiv.

Because we are the opinion that it fits better to make the Rohirrim the more defensive and long term effective spell, we significantly reworked the spell.An inspiration for this was the Ride of the Rohirrim itself. When Gondor called for Aid, Rohan didn't immediantly had a full Army ready to ride, instead there was a mustering first. Theoden himself mentioned that he'd like to wait longer such that he might have commanded an even bigger army, which wasn't possibile due to urgency.Therefore the player will have to decide himself in the future, how urgened the arrival of the Rohrrim is for him. If he needs help immediantly, Rohan will only be able to send a small number of Rohirrim, but if the player grants Theoden more time, more heroes and riders will appear.In the game it was implemented in the way that the player can summon a Rallying Banner at the place where he needs the aid. As soon as the player commands the Ride of the Rohirrim in the Rallying Banner, the Army of Rohan will appear at the place of the Banner. Alternatively, the player can wait the maximal time then the whole army will appear on its own. Additionally to the units and heroes in 4.41, Grimbold and Elfhelm will appear each with a horde of riders, such that all important leaders of the battle of Minas Tirith are gathered.

Due to the fact that the delay between the activation of the spell and the arrival of the troops is definetly a weakening of a spell that wasn't one of the strongest already, all the Rohirrim will arrive with Horse Shields and the hero abilities are a bit different sorted, for example Theoden got his Glorious Charge.

In the video below, you can see some of the more complexe changes ingame:

We hope you are excited about the new spellbook and look forward to receive your feedback.

Nice, this is the best spellbook style I have see.
Heal, Arrow Storm, and Cloydbreak, really fit an elven faction much more, and Gondor actually looks like a professional army, now that there spells aid their infantry and war machines more.

Let's be straight : you are one balsy team Edain. Deleting 2 iconic spells from from BFME1 needs some courage, but you made up for this well. Faction spell looks good, finally no arrow volley (loved it in vanilla game, hated in edain) and barrage is interesting.

However, how can gondor battles mordors darkness or freezing rain?

And please, change the barrage picture. Put some nice shot from movie when gondor barrages mordor with catapults :)

There will definitely be a lot of balance changes but we have been working on this closely with our balance testers for a long time now(and still are), so that we think we have a good balance as it is now, considering the new spellbooks.

Wait..they are NOT going to be in 4.5? so is 4.5 going to be the big gameplay overhaul and then the Misty Mountains will arrive in 4.6? Bummer...I was really looking forward to seeing them finally. oh well. worth the wait, anyways.

I can only tell you that the Misty Mountains have always been one of the most popular factions among the Edain Community, although the faction itself is not available yet.

The reasons behind such apprehension are quite comprehensible: the faction will comprise the most complex and unique gameplay style of the whole game (the structural disposition in realms), the Edain Team has (rightly) kept the details of their plans well secret so far (contributing to create a sort of aura of mystery about the matter) and, most importantly, the faction will be the most Hobbit-based as well. The atmosphere of the three films of the Hobbit trilogy powerfully conveyed by a single faction; just imagine, the player will be able to dispose of characters as Smaug, Azog and Bolg (with their own leadership-related properties) at the same time.

I too have never been so much fond of Goblins, generally speaking, but I can quite understand the expectation of so many people. The Misty Mountains are thus to be a revolutionary and refreshing wind of change for the Edain Mod, making us all forget the times in which the very faction was just supposed to be a confused ensemble of foul beasts ;)

Apart from these sheer results, I always sensed people's great expectation for this faction throughout the forum, for the mentioned reasons. If not the most popular, it's quite apparent that it is held in high regard by the Edain Community.

The linked ones are the polls, which faction should be implemented the next, which makes quite a difference. Furthermore the current result of the survey is completly crooked, because people have continued voting long after the Dwarves were included. At the time from the survey, the Misty Mountains weren't even at the second place.

What makes a difference is that we were talking about the new Misty Mountains that will be part of the Edain 4.0 era, as envisaged by the official plans. The old fashion of the faction was exactly characterised by that 'ensemble logic' that you (ET) yourself addressed, in the article you published some time ago about your planned propositions.

Nevertheless, apart from mere numbers (which already indicate a lot, given the great turn-up of the polls I linked), as I previously wrote, the interest in the Misty Mountains has been constantly growing and being progressively augmented among the Edain Community, despite the legitimate scarcity of information provided so far. One could just judge from the recent wide-ranging debate which took place on MU. By the way, the very question was exactly meant to know the reason of such expectation for the new version of the faction. I consequently gave that kind of answer, referring to the future and not to the past ;)

Yeah. DieWalküre said it best. Also, Mordor has a relationship between Sauron and the faction itself as far as power goes (as one gains power, so does the other). The Misty Mountains, from the only articles that have been released on them, don't have this dependency and they have a dragon (which is now unique to them since the Edain team wisely removed all other instances of in-faction dragons). Also, the Misty Mountains faction will lend itself more heavily to guerilla (and possibly suicide mission) tactics and be the go-to guerilla faction for evil. This would be similar to how Lothlorien is the go-to guerilla faction for good.

I was already excited to see how this new spellbook system will work. But now that I have seen the new version of Gondor's spells, I am completely sold on this new direction for spellbooks! This is so great. I look forward to seeing the changes made to the other faction's spellbooks.

Yet more fantastic work from the Edain team. I love this new direction for the spells! It makes playing the faction feel more like leveling up a complex character in an RPG, which is fantastic.

Have you considered the possibility of allowing choices in central spells? The faction could maybe only purchase one of them, but they have this overarching passive effect that enhances the way a faction performs in one way or another. Just a thought.

Has anyone found a way to get Battle for Middle Earth 2 / Rise of the Witch King to run on Windows 10? I've been trying relentlessly for the past few months, keeping my eyes on various forums and blogs to see if a solution will ever be posted... but so far I've had no luck. I've tried every solution I've come across on the web, but nothing ends up with any positive results. I figured maybe someone using this mod has found a way to get the base game running on Windows 10... I'd love to get the game up and running again - I've been waiting forever to play this awesome mod! I have a legitimate store-bought copy of the anthology, but I'm thinking about resorting to torrenting the game out of desperation just to see if it would work (I'd hate to do this but I'm out of options!). Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Looks great but I still see it as problematik that army of the dead and the rohirim thingy are still strong spells that turn the tides of battle (atleast I would assume that.) which can be used several times while one of the final spells for mordor is a passive upgrade that can only be activated once. Meaning it surely is helpful but might be far less influetial.

Hi, This looks great, cant wait to try it out.
My one little niggle is that I've always loved the suddenness of the Rohan Summon, in a clutch moment it can really turn the fight around and although it obviously can still do that,the new change makes it sound like more of a part of the players grand strategy instead of a saving grace in a moment of need which was what the legendary moment was really all about.
Just my opinion thought, love your work!

In addition to horse shields, the Rohirrim should arrive with banner bearers, forged blades and heavy armour to signify their preparedness to go to Gondor's aid, as well as to make the 10 point summon much better in general. Since Isengard's 10 point spellbook summons a fully upgraded, permanent force to the field, I should think that this summon should be as powerful, if not more powerful, than Isengard's summon due to the fact that it's only a temporary summon.